Jason Kander, 36, is a rising Democratic Party star. He came to Knoxville on Feb. 24 in his role as president of Let America Vote, an organization he started in Missouri. It is devoted to fighting against voter suppression proposals and laws. He declared that Tennessee is one of five states his organization is expanding to serve.

Kander spoke to a group of more than 200 people at a Knox County Democratic Party event at the Beck Center. He spoke in front of a timeline of the battle for civil rights and took that opportunity to explain voter suppression in civil rights terms. As Missouri’s secretary of state, and thus chief election official, he had a front-row seat to how Republican legislative supermajorities wield voter suppression as a campaign strategy.

“I got to see the voter suppression playbook, unfortunately, up close and personal,” he stated. “Step one is they undermine faith in American democracy. Step two, they create obstacles to voting. Step three is they create obstacles to the obstacles.”

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Mark Harmon, KNS columnist(Photo: Paul Efird / News Sentinel)

“They pretend that this is a policy difference between the parties. They pretend that this is like taxes or health care. That’s not true,” Kander continued. “This is a political strategy by the Republicans, going on about 20 years now. … They do it because it helps them win elections. Period.”

Kander said that Republicans look at the electorate and see groups — minorities, young people, low-income families, the disabled, women and the elderly — whose lives have been harmed by Republican policies, but rather than change those policies, “they’re just going to eliminate those people from democracy.”

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Kander is an Army intelligence officer who volunteered to serve a tour in Afghanistan, and he takes no guff when he hears superfluous arguments about needing a photo ID, for example, to check into a hotel. That came up during the question-and-answer period. “I didn’t go to Afghanistan for your right to check into a hotel,” he said to applause.

The battle against voter suppression is a topic on Kander’s popular podcast, "Majority 54," named for the 54 percent of us who didn’t vote for Donald Trump. He also advances progressive causes like greater college affordability, criminal justice reform, and defending, expanding and improving the Affordable Care Act.

In-person voter fraud is extremely rare, but the GOP deploys it as an excuse to make voting more difficult for traditionally Democratic groups, then Republicans embrace nonsense arguments to distract from their naked power plays. Not only does Kander describe these things clearly, he also shows how Trump Republicans advance Vladimir Putin’s tactics against western democracy.

Mark Harmon is a professor of journalism and electronic media at the University of Tennessee and a member of the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee.